Pre Planning Mode

Ahnteis

<div class="IPBDescription">TA Hook</div>Those who are familiar with TA Hook for Total Annihilation will know exactly what I'm talking about -- I hope this is clear for everyone else. (Guild wars also had a similar feature.)

It would be awesome to have a shared whiteboard overlay on the minimap. In other words, you could draw on the map as well as make notes. (You could mark where you'd like to put your SCs, or draw in group attack routes.) You'd click the minimap key and then be able to draw on everyone's minimap. (Options for "muting" would of course be needed.)

Buzzou

<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?s=8414491130029743104&showtopic=97986&view=findpost&p=1607691" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index....t&p=1607691</a>

a similar idea was mentioned in the link above, but that only related to the commander. i think this idea would be great, instead of barking orders into you're mic, or franticly typing em out, you could just draw em onto the map.

i never played any of the games you mentioned, would the drawings/notes stay there to be removed by the user later, or go away over time?

maybe there could be a little palette next to it with important icons for structures like RT, SC, DC, MC, OC, hive etc <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/hive5.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::hive::" border="0" alt="hive5.gif" />

same thing with marines, phase, obs, TF, turret, siege etc <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/turret.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::sentry::" border="0" alt="turret.gif" /> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/siege.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::siege::" border="0" alt="siege.gif" />

that would make it a bit more neat, and easier to understand than a bunch of squiggles.....

Ahnteis

Timeliness is up for discussion / dev decision -- but
TAHook had erase functions and I don't believe it had any timelimit.
Guild Wars had a very short fade-out time.

I prefer the later -- you may want to mark where you saw a sensory chamber and come back to it later.

N_3

i dunno if this would be suitable for general public play, most won't be interested and it could take a fair bit of time each round. could be worthwhile for competitive gameplay but generally clans work out what they're doing before hand on vent/irc and sending shrewd pictures then rather than in the pre-game where they'd waste everyone's time.

usererror

Well, it could be an "as you go" thing, not a "plan out the map to the last detail before the game starts" thing, instead of having to use waypoints for everything. Where's the hive? Draw a circle around it. Icons are a neat idea too. It could be a faster way of letting the rines at the very least know what's going on. I'm not too sure how useful it would be for aliens.

Harrower

I'd make it fade out for marines, and let the comm draw with a fading marker (by default) or a permanent marker (optionally). Since NS is a fast-paced game, the fading marker makes sense as the default.